Daily Archives: November 20, 2013

No it wasn’t the type of day where anyone stole a Ferrari and sped down the streets of Chicago.

And it was not the type of day where “my best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw me pass out at 31 Flavors.”

Instead it was a Ferris Bueller Day in that I took time to slow down since as Ferris would say, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

For me a nice Ferris day involves some waves and some birds.Photo R. Anderson

Of course for anyone who has been under a rock where they do not have access to John Hughes films Ferris Bueller, played by Matthew Broderick, is the central character in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” which is for many the definitive work on the subject of goofing off.

In the movie Ferris and his friends skip school and spend a day traveling through Chicago and having one adventure after another while being pursued by the high school principal Mr. Rooney.

Throughout my life I have taken the Ferris philosophy to heart time and time again.

Whether it was skipping school to catch a baseball game, or skipping work to do pretty much anything other than work, I have long been a firm believer that one needs to take a personal wellness day now and then.

With temperatures topping out around 70 yesterday the weather was not too hot and not too cold making it about as perfect as one could want for a Ferris Day.

With weather like that almost anyone in their right mind would blow off work and whatever else they had planned and just enjoy the day.

Unfortunately as I have gotten older I have become slightly more responsible with my Ferris days. So with items on my calendar that could not be moved I decided that a full Ferris day was impossible to pull off.

So when it came time for lunch I decided to take a drive down to a park along Galveston Bay and roll the windows down and enjoy the view for my Ferris day lunch.

The view included waves, birds and a very inconsiderate guy in a BMW.

When I first arrived at the park I was the only car there so I backed into a parking spot and enjoyed the sights and the sounds of having the place all to myself.

Views like this certainly make work hard to think about.Photo R. Anderson

About 10 minutes into my peace and quiet a green BMW pulled into the park. This was not an issue since the park is certainly big enough for several cars to fit in.

It became an issue when the driver of the BMW decided that the best place in the entire park was right in front of my car.

So my peace and quiet was temporarily interrupted by a “Mr. Rooney” that just had to park right in front of me while he took a picture of the scenery.

Thankfully the man in the BMW was gone almost as soon as he arrived and my uninterrupted view of the bay was restored.

Sadly the next interruption to my blissful Buellerness came when I realized that as much as I wanted to stay there all day I had other things that needed to be done.

So while my Bueller Day only lasted an hour or so it was certainly a perfect break in the day and reminded me that it is certainly important to take time to relax now and then.

And of course if one happens to have access to a classic Ferrari, it can make goofing off even better.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to start planning my next Bueller Day.